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Saturday, May 5, 2012

Not Quite Blindsided!

Well we have had one heck of a week...well year I guess! It has now been officially over a year since I wrote on this blog. What have I been doing? A little of everything. House stuff, kid stuff, you name it I have been doing it.

Most recently our family was thrown a little curve ball...Autism...yep...my little boy has Autism. I am still trying to fully digest that information. Is it a surprise? No

So how did this all come up? Well here is the long story.

About November we started to notice that James was talking a little less than he had been, I figured he was more into his good ole caveman grunting than using words...no biggie.

Then the fits started...not to be confused with a tantrum...a fit (read meltdown) is different. The good ole terrible twos arrived but were different, he didn't want anything when he was in a meltdown. He was out of control, over stimulated and miserable.

Around January I noticed that the 9-10 words James had been saying had been reduced to Hi, Hello and No. I still had not been addressed as Momma and his first word Spock was gone, odd I thought. Well he is a boy and will do things in his own timeline, not mine.

Around the same time I noticed that my niece Rylee who is 10 months younger than James was communicating almost more than James was. You could ask her a question and she would respond with a nod yes or no, humm. I thought to myself that she was just really smart.

At James' 2 year check up in March he was not a happy camper, we are talking HUGE meltdown, clawing at the exam room door, kicking his doctor, kicking me (not cool), I had scratches down my neck and on my arms. I was shocked at how I couldn't get him to settle down, nothing was making him happy. I had all the fruit snacks, water, crackers and books to keep him happy, he could care less. I thought that his allergic reaction (another long story) a few months back had ruined the doctors office for him, bad memories and all. Over the screams I tried to answer the doctors question and get the appointment over ASAP. The Doctor asked if I had any concerns, ahhh yeah he isn't talking. I asked if we should check his hearing or something or if we should give him more time. The doc asked if I was concerned about Autism, my heart stopped, dramatic I know but I was beyond annoyed. NO I was not concerned about Autism he was just being stubborn about talking and he had a bad experience at his last trip to the office.He was fine other than that.

Well flash forward a few months and I am less shocked.

After tons of paperwork, tons of questions, several doctors and specialists that is the diagnosis we got on Thursday. While it was not a surprise I was surprised to realize I was really holding out for them to tell us we were just spoiling our little man and that we needed to work on that...well not so much.

Seeing as it has been just a few days I really have very little information to offer our friends and family...or myself for that matter. James has not changed, he is still our sweet little man.

What is next??? Well I have made about 5 calls getting set up for speech therapy, Autism support groups, regional resources and so on. We have a lot of work ahead of us, we need to get educated.

Finding the right way to tell our friends, extended family and acquaintances our news has been on my mind. I don't want to make this a huge issue, but for us it is huge.

So yeah...I'm going to start up this blog thing again...I imagine the content is going to change from it's original plan...join me as I learn about Autism.

2 comments:

Hey Christy, I know this is hard, God knows we're waiting to find out what's going on with ours, but if you ever need anything, please don't hesitate and text or call me or Mike. We're here for you, and James is absolutely precious and such a sweet lil boy.

Hi Christy - oh I feel so much for you. But I think that so much more is known about it and there is much more help and therapy available now. I know that it will be challenging and I pray for you. Any therapy that you can get for him will help so much. I knew a woman who would go to families and help their children with autism. She told me that she could see so much improvement within 6 months to a year.

Know that there are people out there to help you and who care about you and your son.